SITUATIONISTS AND THE 1£CH MAY 1968

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The Decline & Fall of the "Spectacular" Commodity- Economy
From the 13th to the 16th of August, 1965, the
blacks of Los Angeles revolted. An incident
involving traffic police and pedestrians developed
into two days of spontaneous riots. The
forces of order, despite repeated reinforcement,
were unable to gain control of the streets. By the
third day, the negroes had armed themselves by
pillaging such arms shops as were accessible,
and were so enabled to open fire on police helicopters.
Thousands of soldiers - the whole military
weight of an infantry division, supported by
tanks - had to be thrown into the struggle before
the Watts area could be surrounded, after which
it took several days and much street fighting for
it to be brought under control. The rioters didn't
hesitate to plunder and burn the shops of the
area. The official figures testify to 32 dead,
including 27 negroes, plus Soo wounded and
3,ooo arrested.
Reactions on all sides were invested with
clarity: the revolutionary act always discloses
the reality of existing problems, lending an
unaccustomed and unconscious truth to the various
postures of its opponents.Police Chief
William Parker, for example, refused all mediation
proposed by the main Negro organisations,
asserting correctly that the rioters had no
leader. Evidently, as the blacks were without a
leader, this was the moment of truth for both
parties. What did Roy Wilkins, general secretary
of the NAACP, want at that moment ? He
declared that the riots should be put down "with
all the force necessary". And the Cardinal of Los
Angeles, Mclntyre, who protested loudly; had
not protested against the violence of the repression,
which one would have supposed the subtle
thing to do, at the moment of the aggiornamento
of the Roman church; instead, he protested in
the most urgent tones about "a premeditated
revolt against the rights of one's . neighbour;
respect for the law and the maintenance of
order", calling upon catholics to oppose the
plundering and the apparently unjustified violence.
All the theorists and "spokesmen" of the
international Left (or, rather of its nothingness)
deplored the irresponsibility and disorder, the
pillaging and above all the fact that arms and
alcohol were the first targets for plunder; finally,
that 2,ooo fires had been started by the Watts
gasoline throwers to light up their battle and
their ball. But who was there to defend the rioters
of Los Angeles in the terms they deserve?
Well, we shall. Let us leave the economists to
grieve over the 27 million dollars lost, and the
town planners over one of their most beautiful
supermarkets gone up in smoke, and Mclntyre
over his slain Deputy Sheriff; let the sociologists
weep over the absurdity and the intoxication of
this rebellion. The job of a revolutionary journal
is not only to justify the Los Angeles insurgents,
but to help uncover their just reasons: to explain
theoretically the truth for which such practical
action expresses the search.
In Algiers in July, 1965, following
Boumedienne's coup d' etat, the situationists
published an Address to the Algerians and to
revolutionaries all over the world, which inter- .
preted conditions in Algeria and in the rest of the
world as a whole; among their examples, they
evoked the American negroes, who if they could
"affirm themselves significantly" would unmask
the contradictions of the most advanced of capitalist
systems. Five weeks later, this significance
found an expression on the street. Theoretical
criticism of modern society, in its advanced
forms, and criticism in actions of the same society,
co-exist at this moment: still separated but
both advancing towards the same reality, both
talking of the same thing. These two critiques
are mutually explanatory, each being incpmprehensible
without the other. Our theory of "survival"
and the "spectacle" is illuminated and ver-